te ao M\u0101ori community and developed close personal relationships with the investors<\/a>, many of whom had limited prior experience with investing. <\/p>\nIt was done through their companies Ng\u0101kau Aroha Investments Ltd and Power To Me Aotearoa Tapui Ltd.<\/p>\n
Their offending occurred between May 2014 and May 2021, deceptively obtaining $3.9m through 104 transactions.<\/p>\n
The High Court was set to hear their cases during a judge-alone trial in August, but the couple have now admitted charges of obtaining by deception.<\/p>\n
![\"Aroha]()
Aroha Tuira stands in the High Court at Christchurch. Photo \/ Iain McGregor \/ Pool<\/p>\n
\u2018It has been devastating\u2019<\/p>\n
Justice Jonathan Eaton said it was a joint exercise in which the couple worked as a team to identify investors.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou welcomed investors as friends into your house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Together the couple inflated their own wealth to deceive investors, the judge said.<\/p>\n
They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on international travel.<\/p>\n
The couple would provide investors with \u201cagreements\u201d, often putting pressure on them to sign up, only to give false explanations when investors later raised questions. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been devastating,\u201d Justice Eaton said. <\/p>\n
The Serious Fraud Office announced in November 2021 it had executed search warrants as part of its investigation into the couple. <\/p>\n
Archived websites for Power to Me described an operation as founded and run by Alex Tuira that provided \u201csuccessful strategies for personal empowerment and financial literacy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tuira listed a range of self-help programmes as his primary qualifications, including courses by Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki and Jordan Belfort, also known as the Wolf of Wall Street.<\/p>\n
Companies Office records showed there were 34 shareholders in Power to Me Aotearoa Tapui, including a 5.31% holding by former Ng\u0101i Tahu chief operating officer Julian Wilcox and several parcels held by members of former Ng\u0101i Tahu chairman Sir Mark Solomon\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
Justice Eaton sentenced Alex Tuira to six years and four months\u2019 jail. <\/p>\n
Aroha Tuira was sentenced to five years and two months\u2019 jail. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is so clear that the offending went far beyond financial loss,\u201d Justice Eaton said. <\/p>\n
The judge did not make a reparation order. <\/p>\n
Serious Fraud Office director Karen Chang later thanked the witnesses and victims who came forward to support the investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir co-operation and willingness to engage were critical to achieving today\u2019s outcome,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPonzi schemes cause deep and lasting harm to victims, many of whom lose not only their money but also their trust in others,\u201d Chang said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guilty pleas meant those affected were spared the stress of a trial, and today\u2019s sentences hold the offenders to account for the significant harm they caused.\u201d <\/p>\n
Al Williams is an Open Justice reporter for the New Zealand Herald, based in Christchurch. He has worked in daily and community titles in New Zealand and overseas for the last 16 years. Most recently he was editor of the Hauraki-Coromandel Post, based in Whangamat\u0101. He was previously deputy editor of the Cook Islands News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One by one they told the court of deception and stolen savings. \u201cAroha and Alex gave us their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[114110,74,20306,95,93609,1558,8414,38471,43714,6183,2082,3561,72919,14641,4380,111,43,139,69,384,114111,4578,15452,31145,165,8229,85539,114109,102],"class_list":["post-178540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-39m","tag-after","tag-alex","tag-and","tag-aroha","tag-been","tag-couple","tag-devastating","tag-discovering","tag-dozens","tag-for","tag-fraud","tag-heartbreak","tag-jailed","tag-millions","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-people","tag-ponzi","tag-savings","tag-scammed","tag-suffered","tag-their","tag-they","tag-trusted","tag-tuira","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}